11.28.05
Posted in Evolution at 12:19 pm by nemo
Daniel Gilbert, author of The Vagaries of Religious Experience, explores the illusions of agency at Edge.org
Is God is nothing more than an attempt to explain order and good fortune by those who do not understand the mathematics of chance, the principles of self-organizing systems, or the psychology of the human mind?
The vagaries of self-organization are fully the equivalent of the theological. It seems that modern science is condemned to a strange fate: noone can grasp the subject of probability. Things that are non-random are taken as sourcing in the random, invoking the ‘self-organization’ mantra. This confusion is evident in the economic misuse of the term, and ‘economic self-oganization’ is taken as a template for evolution.
The point should be that, and perhaps the point is a lost cause in a monotheistic geographical region, ‘self-organization’ is a prime contender to explicate, not the source of order from randomness, but the source of order as such. We see naturalistic processes that produce order, and it is indeed the vagaries of religious experience that tempt us to stop short with design arguments.
Consider the eonic effect. We see an immense process of ‘self-organization’ operating over many millennia, visible in a clear non-random patterning of historical events. This isn’t randomness at work, but a directed evolutionary process that we are unable at this point to explicate. Such a phenomenon does indeed induce the illusions of agency, and it is not chance that the Israelites catching a glimpse of universal history made up myths about superagents in history.
Let us set these aside, but without invoking the ‘magic’ of chance, another illusion of agency.
It is all very well to speak about self-organization. So consider the data of the Axial Age. A stupendous derandomizing process, one that extracts itself from illusions of agency. In a word, evolution in action. Theology won’t help. But can science face the facts itself? Is ‘self-organization’ another magical wishfulfilment?
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11.22.05
Posted in Evolution, The Eonic Effect at 12:41 pm by nemo
Continuing the question of Karen Armstrong on the Axial Age, previous post here, which you can read first.
Googling Karen Armstrong’s views on a so-called ‘Second Axial Age’ I find a number of seminars on the subject, with this from a conference of the Jesus Seminar. Who should we find present here but Eugenie Scott! Hey wait a minute! I will indulge a moment’s (paranoid) speculation that we are to be treated to a version of the “Second Axial Age” that is sanitized on Darwin. You won’t get away with it. If you propose an Axial Age, or a second Axial Age, you have to declare by what evolutionary dynamic this occurs, and in the process address the issue of Darwinism. Obviously that will kill the sales of Ms. Armstrong’s projected book, and with Eugenie Scott scurrying in the shadows I doubt if we will hear a peep on evolution.
I have a bad feeling about all of this….
Wouldn’t the establishment like a bad book by Armstrong on the Axial Age, one well-behaved on Darwin, a book so bad it will discredit the idea for another generation, and quite possibly deflect attention from my comprehensive treatment of the subject, which is not well-behaved on Darwinism.
The theme of the conference was “The Future of the Judeo-Christian Tradition in the Second Axial Age.” The philosopher Karl Jaspers had coined the phrase “first axial age” to refer to the period from 800 BCE to 200 CE, when virtually every major civilization witnessed the appearance of key religious figures, prophets and sages. The second axial age denotes, according to the Seminar, the revolution in Western thinking from 1600 on produced by the Enlightenment and the rise of modern science, including the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo and Darwin. The last one hundred years are apparently included by the Seminar in this age, even though other commentators would mark ours as the start of a new historical period: the “postmodern” era.
Here is the crux of the confusion, and we see that the current New Age postmodern strategy is at work. Armstrong’s plans for a book on the (Second) Axial Age is now transparent, complete with a ‘logos-mythos’ version of the issue of God. Armstrong’s pet theme is ‘logos=mythos’, which must mean ‘make it up as you go along’.
The problem lies with the postulation of ‘age periods’. The ‘Axial Age’ points to a definite phenomenon, but there is no ‘age period’ as such called an ‘Axial Age’ save as a descriptive category. If you try to generalize and postulate a ‘second Axial Age’ you are in trouble, you need a definition of ‘age periods’. And there is, for the same reason, no such thing as a ‘postmodern’ age.
The study of the eonic effect completely resolves all these questions, and it is to be hoped that Ms. Armstrong in her declared intent to write a book on this subject get her act together or the result will a hopeless mess. Clearly she will not deign to read my book, so, armed with the power of celebrity bestsellerdom, we will be treated to some real crud.
World History and The Eonic Effect completely resolves this question of ‘axial periods’, ‘age periods’, ‘new ages’, phoney ‘new ages’, postmodern phoney ‘new ages’, gurus promoting postmodern phoney ‘new ages’, plots against modernity, modern freedom, democracy, and spiritual autonomy by gurus promoting postmoern phoney ‘new ages’, … enough?
I also have a tutorial series on the ‘Axial Age’ at
Tutorial on Axial Age
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11.20.05
Posted in Evolution, The Axial Age at 7:55 am by nemo
What is Enlightenment? magazine, issue 31, has an article on Karen Armstrong and the supposed ‘Second Axial Age’. Text is listed below, after my commentary. This page updates a post from a few days ago, and is also available at
A Second Axial Age?
The use of the term ‘Axial Age’ has suffered confusion, and has degenerated in some accounts into a conception of an age that produced the great religions. But that is not what the Axial Age was. Armstrong’s thinking here needs my eonic effect model!
Armstrong notes in the article that she plans to write a book on the Second Axial Age. Based on the material here, and the earlier material in Armstrong’s books, I would strongly caution against that. It will be a lousy book indeed, although it might well sell in the current postmodern New Age crowd. Armstrong is in over her head on this Axial notion of hers, and even a cursory glance at my eonic model shows the traps involved. The whole question of the Axial Age enters into my work in a marginal fashion, as a descriptive, not theoretical term. From there I completely recast the foundations of the idea. Any attempt to speculate about Big History using the Axial concept is going to be pure nonsense unless you are very careful to indulge at most in empirical periodization, my approach. I doubt if Ms. Armstrong will listen, but if you plan to go over Niagara Falls, I can’t stop you.
Further, her thinking seems to have shifted slightly on this, first was the idea of some kind of postmodern resurgence of religion as the Second Axial Age, then suddenly there was a shift, she speaks of this Second Axial Age starting in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. I was left wondering if she had seen my website! Jaspers himself seems unclear on this, and never quite proposed a second Axial Age.
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